THE FIGHT WITH THE ARRAN. "'Fire!' shouted the captain, and even then there was an irritating pause."THE FIGHT WITH THE ARRAN."'Fire!' shouted the captain, and even then there was an irritating pause."
THE FIGHT WITH THE ARRAN. "'Fire!' shouted the captain, and even then there was an irritating pause."THE FIGHT WITH THE ARRAN."'Fire!' shouted the captain, and even then there was an irritating pause."
THE FIGHT WITH THE ARRAN."'Fire!' shouted the captain, and even then there was an irritating pause."
"Ugh!" grunted the red man, at last. "Ole chief wait and see brig bowsprit. Send shot behind it."
The long eighteen spoke out, and was instantly followed by the three sixes on that side of theNoank. It was at the very moment when Lieutenant Tracy remarked, inquiringly:—
"What? Don't they mean to answer us? You don't say they'll surrender without firing a shot? That isn't like 'em, now—"
His next utterance was much louder.
"George!" he shouted. "There goes my bowsprit! The jolly-boat's knocked into matchwood! I declare! There's a hole in the mains'l! Is anybody hurt?"
"Not a man, sir!" shouted back Fletcher, cheerfully. "We'll give it to 'em!"
The brig had been already going about, and her other broadside was as well directed as the first. It would have been bad for theNoankbut for her heavy timbers and the lightness of Tracy's metal. She was hulled in three places, and there was a ragged split in her foresail. It did not prevent her going about, however, and her next trio of iron messengers were as well aimed as were the Englishman's.
"They hulled us, sir," reported theArran'ssailing-master. "No great harm. Three men hurt by splinters. The after rigging's cut a bit. We must finish that chap, sir."
"That cursed long gun o' theirs!" growled Tracy, fiercely. "Captain Syme told me, and I hardly believed him. That's what may play the mischief with us. I wish we were at broadsides with her."
That was precisely the advantage which Captain Avery did not intend to give him, right away, and theArran, losing her bowsprit, was not by any means so difficult to keep away from or to outmanoeuvre.
Slowly, carefully, Up-na-tan had again sighted his gun and measured his distance. It was tantalizing to watch him as he doggedly refused to throw away a shot.
"Ugh! Whoo-oop!" he yelled, as his lanyard touched the priming of his gun. "Now see! Ole chief take 'em aft!"
"I wish he'd do as well for one end of her as he did for the other," muttered the captain.
"He's done it, sir!" exclaimed Guert, for he had borrowed the captain's telescope.
"That Indian's a gunner!" said Groot, with emphasis. "I never saw one to beat him. I've seen pretty good marksmen, too."
The peculiar accuracy of eye born in or acquired by the old red man was a disastrous gift for the British revenue brig. Almost too far aft did the shot hit her, but in it went, and all her rudder gear was useless in a second of time. She could no longer answer her wheel, and began to lurch about at the mercy of wind and wave.
Fierce indeed were the execrations of her helpless officers and crew. All their courage and seamanship were of no use, now. Their guns might as well have been made of wood, and their jaunty brig had become as clumsy and unmanageable as a raft. Moreover, the terrible American was speeding nearer, and only a few minutes went by before there came a loud-voiced demand for her surrender to the—
"United States armed cruiserNoank, Captain Lyme Avery."
"His Britannic Majesty's brigArran, Lieutenant Tracy. We surrender, of course. You could sink us as we are now. All the luck's yours."
"We'll come alongside," said Avery.
"I wish I had a right to board him when he comes," growled Tracy, as his flag came down. "There'd be some satisfaction in that."
A few minutes later he had changed that opinion, for an unexpected torrent of men poured over his bulwarks from theNoank.
"'Pon my soul!" he exclaimed. "What a crew she has! They outnumber us two to one. It's no disgrace at all!"
All the British tars felt relieved in their minds after a good look at their victors. The result of the fight was not to be a discredit to them, they said, and the American sailors hailed them merrily. There had been no killing on either side, and there was no cause for bad temper. The best shots had decided the fight, and all true seamen could accept the consequences.
"Lieutenant Tracy," said Captain Avery, "we don't want your brig. We'll take out of her all that suits us, and then you can drift around till help gets to you. Or you can patch up and work your way into some port or other."
"I can manage it," said the Englishman, ruefully. "We captured a French smuggler yesterday, and now a deal o' that luck is yours instead of ours. You rebels are holding out wonderfully."
"So is England," laughed Captain Avery. "You won't give up, and we won't. I guess you'll have to, though, one o' these days."
"Never!" said Tracy, sturdily. "All the colonies'll have to come back under the king, sooner or later."
"You wait and see," said the captain.
The loyal-hearted lieutenant, however, had expressed no more than the almost undoubting faith of the great body of his countrymen. They were simply unable to believe that the Americans could succeed.
Down into the hold of theArranhad dashed the men of theNoank. Tackle had been quickly rigged at the hatches.
One of the commands given had related to a search for powder and shot, and the entire supply of the brig was now coming up, to be transferred to the schooner. It was a timely winning, for her stock had begun to run low.
"It's a good thing for us," said her captain and crew, as they secured it.
Anything and everything in the nature of arms and ammunition, furniture, cutlery, table goods, bales of woollens, and packages of silks taken from the French smuggler, more than a little tanned leather, lots of miscellaneous stuff not yet precisely known as to its character, made up the unexpectedly valuable plunder of the smuggler-capturing brig.
There was no time to transfer her cannon, and these were left behind, spiked. Her spare sails went, however, with a good yawl-boat and some extra light spars. Then theNoankcast off, and her crew gave their crestfallen British acquaintances three rounds of hearty cheers.
"Captain Avery," shouted Tracy, "you're a good fellow, but Fletcher and I hope we may meet you again, some day, with better luck to our guns."
"All right!" responded the captain. "May you command a forty-four and I another. Then the United States'll own one more prime ship that used to be the king's. Hurrah!"
With the exception, it may be, of the Mediterranean Sea, there is no other water whereupon so much history has been manufactured as on the British Channel.
Away back beyond Cæsar's day and ever since, it has been cruised over by all sorts of vessels and fleets. Its first absolute rulers were the Norse-Saxon vikings. After them it has been Danish, Dutch, French, and English.
One of the later Dutch admirals once carried a broom at his masthead in a boastful declaration that he had swept the Channel clean of every opposing force. Not a great while afterward, the British sea-captains fell heirs to the Hollander's broom.
TheNoankhad not lain long grappled to the disabledArran. There was danger in every hour of delay. The plunder obtained, although valuable, was not excessively bulky, and was rapidly transferred and stowed away.
There was no apparent danger but that the brig would speedily receive assistance, for there were other sails already in sight. Her first disability, as to any of these, was that she was no longer able to fire a signal-gun, and all her rockets and other explosives had been taken away. Her officers and crew were left to do whatever they could with flags in the daytime, or with lanterns by night.
"We're off," thought Guert Ten Eyck, as the schooner swung away, all her sails going out as she did so. "Captain Avery says he must capture one more prize, if it's only to take off some of our men. Then we're to streak it for home! Don't I want to get there?"
The cruise of theNoankhad indeed become a long one. There were several ship reasons why it would be good for her to go into dock and be overhauled for repairs. Her crew, also, were more than willing to see their homes and families.
"My boy," said Groot, the Dutchman, as he came to sit down by his young friend, "you go home. I have no home. I must live on the sea. The land is not my place."
"I'll be glad to get there," said Guert, "if it's my own land. Do you know if we're to run into Amsterdam?"
"Not if the captain is wise," replied Groot. "There will be too many Englishmen looking after him, as soon as they hear of this affair."
"Well, I guess they won't like it," laughed Guert. "Up-na-tan is homesick."
The red man was standing within a few feet of them, and he answered as if he had been spoken to.
"Ugh!" he said. "Ole chief want to know 'bout he island. Want see Manhattan. Mebbe all lobster get away. Up-na-tan go see ole place. Fish in Harlem River."
That was what was the matter with him. Warrior he might be, sailor, pirate, or privateersman, but at that moment he was dreaming of the happiness of pulling in flounders and blackfish from the waters around his island.
Guert, on his part, was thinking of his mother. He wondered if she still were living at the Avery farm-house, and if his prize-money had been duly paid over to her to make her comfortable.
"Now, every man hark!" said Captain Avery to his crew, when, a little later, he had gathered them amidships. "We've a close race to run. If this wind holds, we shall be in the Straits of Dover at about daylight to-morrow morning. We are goin' to risk it and cut our way through. Three cheers for home!"
Vigorous, indeed, were the hurrahs that answered him, and on sped the schooner. Her sails that were torn by the shot of theArranwere being replaced by new ones, and skilful sail tailors were busy with the rents of the old. The damage to her bulwarks was of no importance and not a shot had penetrated her sides. The American sailors were in fine spirits, but not so were Lieutenant Tracy and the crew of theArran. Hardly two hours went by before his hoped-for succor came, but he wished it had been a merchantman rather than a man-of-war. The sound of the cannonading had been borne by the wind to the line-of-battle ship. She had sailed toward it, as a matter of course, and here, now, was one of the boats at theArran'sside. On her deck was the seventy-four's first lieutenant, so hot with wrath that he could hardly listen to poor Tracy's report, while he himself rapidly inspected the damages done by Up-na-tan's well-sent iron.
"Help yourself?" he exclaimed. "Why, they made a log of your brig! What's the world coming to? They're prime gunners, my boy. We must make out to sink that rascal. I don't know exactly what to do with your craft."
He did know, nevertheless. Temporary steering-gear was fitting on her as rapidly as might be, and the pumps were going, for theArranwas leaking badly at the stern.
"Tracy, my boy," said the lieutenant, "get her into any port the wind'll help you to. We're away after that saucy privateer."
So surely and so powerfully would the fugitive be followed, not to speak of any perils which might be hovering around the pathway before her. The commander of the line-of-battle ship knew something concerning at least a part of these. He listened to the report of his first officer, on his return, angrily yet coolly, and he replied:—
"All right, Hobson. Tracy isn't to be blamed, I see. As for the pirate, we'll chase her, but she's a lost dog already. The whole Channel fleet is under orders to gather at Dover Straits. She is running right in among 'em. She'll be overhauled before eight bells to-morrow."
"Those Yankees are slippery chaps, sir," said the lieutenant, shaking his head.
The hours went swiftly by, and Captain Avery remained on deck, pacing thoughtfully to and fro. Midnight went by and still the wind held good. It was a strong, northerly breeze, upon which he could have asked for no improvement.
"Lights! Lights! Lights!" he was at last repeating, as he looked ahead. "There's a reg'lar fleet of some sort. Our lanterns are all right, I'd say, 'cordin' to the signal-book. Bad for us, though. All those are British men-o'-war, not merchantmen. Port there, Taber; I must be ready to speak this feller that's nearest. Groot, you and Guert go to the rail. Up-na-tan, you and Coco must help. They mustn't hear any English. Both of you can talk Dutch. Some of us'll chatter French and Spanish."
There were, however, on board that man-of-war, men who could understand Dutch. One of them was an officer who came to the rail to converse with Groot, after hails had been exchanged.
"Magdalen, of Rotterdam?" he said. "Tell those monkeys to shut up their jabber, there, so I can hear! From Copenhagen last? You spoke the line-o'-battle shipHumber, coming this way? Did you hear anything of that American privateer?"
Dutch and French again broke out upon the supposedMagdalen, and the Englishman shouted back toward his own quarter-deck:—
"Hurrah! TheHumberreports the Yankee cruiser sunk by the revenue cutterArran, Lieutenant Tracy. Hurrah for him! Hard fight! The Yankees fought to the last. Nearly a hundred prisoners. Heave ahead,Magdalen! Good news!"
Loud Dutch shouts replied to him, and on went theNoank, while the other vessels of the British Channel fleet received the welcome tidings as it was passed along from ship to ship. Therefore there was no longer any need that they should be on the watch for the impudent, destructive adventurer from the other side of the Atlantic. She had gone to the bottom!
"I feel kind o' queer," thought Guert. "I couldn't ha' done it myself. I had to let Groot do the lying. I'm afraid I'll never do for war. I don't mind a fight, out and out, but somehow I can't help speaking the truth, Dutch or English."
Up-na-tan, on the other hand, was in great good-humor over the very Indian-like manner in which the British were being defeated. The Dover gathering of their war-ships was to him a kind of ambush through which he and his friends were cunningly crawling by hiding their feathers and war-paint.
They were not exactly crawling, either, for Captain Avery was calling upon his schooner for all the speed she had.
"We mustn't lose an inch!" he said. "Their best racers'll be comin' on in our wake in less'n an hour, maybe. I wish this night'd last all day to-morrow."
The next morning had not arrived, indeed, when theHumberherself came within hail of one of her Dover assembly friends. Then, shortly, there arose a more noisy jabber in English than had been heard in Dutch and French on theNoank, for the genuine news had been told in place of Hans Groot's invention. The actual outcome of the fight between theNoankand theArrandid not call for any enthusiastic cheering. Only a little later, the admiral commanding the fleet summed up the whole affair.
"Gentlemen," he said, to a number of glum-looking officers, "we have passed that American pirate right along through this fleet. I think we've a right to go ashore, somewhere, and sit down. It was cleverly done, though, 'pon my soul! Captain Coverley, select our three best chasers to follow her. She mustn't be allowed to get away again!"
Each of the three vessels named was three or four times over a match for theNoank, and her chances did appear to be unpleasantly small.
"There's jest one thing they won't count on our doin'," had been the decision of Captain Avery. "We must put right out into the Atlantic, aimed at nowhere. If it would only blow a gale, now!"
He was not to be gratified in that particular during the pleasant autumn day that followed. Lighter became the wind, brighter the sky, and stiller the sea.
"It's a schooner wind, Lyme," said his old friend Taber, now the second mate of theNoank. "It gives us our best paces. We've run past every keel that was on the same tack, thus far. It isn't really bad luck."
"I hope it isn't," the captain gloomily responded. "But this 'ere sea is a boat sea. They might come for us with a rigiment of their boats, you know. It's a good thing for us that there isn't a man-o'-war in sight, yet. I a'most feel as if there was blood on every mile we're makin'!"
He was even low spirited. It seemed to him impossible that so long a run of what seamen call good luck could be stretched out much further. The sailors, on the other hand, were taking a different view of the matter, very much more sensibly. Every man of them may have had a superstitious belief in "luck," but they had also seen, in each successive emergency, that they had a captain with a long head, and that he knew exactly what to do with that schooner. They were in good spirits, therefore, that sunny day. Perhaps they did not know all the reasons he had for now and then shaking his head.
"There's no port for us, hereaway," he thought. "I don't know of one that it would be safe for us to look into. It's a long v'yage home. We're a good deal overcrowded. There's worse'n that to think of, though. That feller Tracy told me our folks at home are gettin' ready to give it up. He said we are beaten badly, all around. I may find a British garrison in New London, when I get there. One in Boston, too. Then my chance for a rope 'round my neck is a sure one. Things look black, and no mistake!"
He should have been at his home that day instead of at sea. All over New England, all over the other colonies, north and south, as far as the news had been carried; from town to town, from village to village, and from farm to farm, horsemen were riding, men and boys on foot were running to tell of the surrender of Burgoyne. The great British invasion and conquest of the northern half of the American rebellion had broken down. The Six Nations had scattered to their wigwams and council-fires. It would be many days yet before the tidings could reach England or cross the Channel to astonish Continental Europe and seal the alliance between the United States and France. It would be longer still before it could be known by roving cruisers out at sea. For all American keels, however, their home ports had been made secure from British assailing until the generals and admirals of King George should have time given them to consider the Saratoga affair, and make up their astonished minds as to what it might be best for them to undertake next.
"Anneke Ten Eyck," remarked Rachel Tarns, "thee wicked rebel! Has thee no feelings for thy good king and his wise counsellors? Cannot thee understand that their souls may be much disturbed by this untoward event?"
"I wish their fleets were as badly whipped as Burgoyne's army is," replied Mrs. Ten Eyck. "Oh! it is so very long since I've heard from Guert!"
"Trust thy son with thy God!" said Rachel, reverently. "Thee may think of this, Anneke: our victory over Burgoyne hath cost much to hundreds of mothers, as loving as thou art. Their sons lie buried at Stillwater and Saratoga. No gallant ship will bring them home again."
"I know it! I know it!" sobbed Mrs. Ten Eyck. "They gave their lives for liberty. Guert may have to give his as Nathan Hale did. He told me he believed he could die as bravely, only he would rather it should be in battle."
"That he may not choose for himself," said Rachel. "It hath come, heretofore, to many of my own people, Quakers, thou callest them, to die by the fire, and by the water, and by the hempen cord, because they would not give up their freedom to worship God in their own way. I think it was well with them. Let thy son die as it shall be given him in the hour of his appointing."
Deep and solemn had grown the tones of the enthusiastic old Friend, but Mrs. Ten Eyck dropped her knitting and went to a window to look out long and wistfully toward the harbor.
"When will he come sailing in?" she thought. "Am I ever to see him again? Oh! the war is so long, and the sea is so wide, and I love him so!"
Very beautiful and very long-suffering was the patriotism of the American woman of that day. Bitter indeed was the cup that many of them had to drink. Costly as life itself were the sacrifices that they were called upon to make. Well might such a son as Guert, keeping his watch on deck at the end of that long, pleasant day, be thinking only of his mother, rather than of the dangers that surrounded theNoank. Groot, the pirate, came and sat down by him and asked him curious questions concerning the way people lived in America.
"I can't get back to our old farm on Manhattan Island," Guert told him, "until Washington's army marches in again. Up-na-tan and Coco came away with me when we were beaten."
Groot asked then about the New York battles and about New London.
"I always believed," he said, "that I must always live on the sea, but I've been thinking. I can never be safe afloat. I sail with a rope around my neck, although I was never a pirate of my own free will. It is growing in my mind that I had better find some kind of harbor on shore. I shall have prize-money this time. I can make a start at something. I believe I could go away back into one of your states and live a new life."
"That's it," said Guert. "You could go among the Mohawk Valley Dutchmen, if Manhattan Island is too near the sea. You'd be hidden there, safe enough. Nobody would ever come for you."
"I'll think of it," said Groot. "No man knows how long he is going to live, anyhow."
So there was rejoicing, with mourning also, and anxiety, upon the land, and it was a time for serious thinking on the sea; but at this moment the forward lookout startled all on board by the vigorous voice with which he sang out:—
"Sail ahead! Close on the larboard bow! Big three-master! No light showing!"
"All hands away!" roared Captain Avery. "Port your helm, there! Men! If it's an armed ship, it's too late to get away. We must grapple and board her, for life and death. Get the grapplings ready! Ship ahoy!"
The response was the report of a shotted gun and an angry shout:—
"We know you! Keep away, or we'll sink you! We can do it!"
"British trader," thought Captain Avery. "He's told us all we need to know. He's a strong one, I guess, and he could maul us badly. Our only chance is to close with him." Then he shouted to his crew:—
"Pikes and cutlasses! All hands be ready to follow me! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!" came wildly back, and the three guns of the schooner's broadside, with the long eighteen, answered the stranger's challenge.
They were well enough directed, and so was the reply that came from half a dozen English pieces, but these, quite naturally at so short a range, were aimed too high. Down came both of the topmasts of theNoank, while her hull and ship's company were unhurt. She was a crippled craft in a moment, but she still had enough of headway to carry her alongside of her bulky antagonist before her guns could be reloaded.
"Throw the grapnels!" shouted Captain Avery. "Haul, now! All aboard! Fore and aft, and amidships! Give it to 'em!"
Down he went the next instant, flat upon the deck of the English ship, as he sprang over her bulwark. Down at his side fell the British sailor by whose cutlass he had fallen, and over both of them sprang Guert Ten Eyck with Up-na-tan and Coco reaching out to hold him back and get in before him.
"I hit him!" shouted Guert, fiercely.
"Forward! Down with 'em! The ship is ours!"
Right here, amidships, the English crew had supposed to be the strength of their assailants and they had rushed desperately to meet it. They had not heard, however, the last command of Captain Avery, and his fore and aft boarding parties went over almost unopposed.
"We are surrounded!" exclaimed the British captain, "They are four to one! Hold hands, Americans! We surrender!"
It was time for him to do so, for fully a third of his crew were already down. They had been completely surprised as well as outnumbered.
"Ugh!" exclaimed Up-na-tan, as he lowered his pike and turned suddenly toward Guert. "Boy hurt?"
"Coco catch him!" said the old black man, eagerly, as Guert sank upon the deck. "Saw lobster cut him!"
"Never mind me!" yelled Guert. "See how Captain Avery is! Look at the cut in his head!"
"Wors'n that!" came hoarsely from first mate Morgan, as he bent above the fallen captain. "Taber, take charge of all for a moment! Lyme Avery is dead! Shot through the heart! Send the prisoners below. Look out for the wounded. All hands clear ship! Both ships! Make sail at once! I'm in command of theNoank. Taber'll take this one."
The second mate was a Groton man, a grim old salt who had sailed in many seas. He was a good man to lean on in such an emergency, and he rattled out his orders while the men secured the prisoners. Morgan slowly stood erect as the English commander came toward him.
"You are the American captain, sir? I know what your ship is. Mine is theLynx, British privateer, Captain Ellis. We were on the lookout for you, or we thought we were."
"I'm Captain Morgan, now Lyme Avery is dead," was the somewhat sadly spoken reply. "How is it that you're so short-handed?"
"We had only forty able men left, all told," said Ellis. "Thirteen more sick or wounded. All the rest away in prizes or taken out of us by the reg'lar men-o'-war. The prizes and the press-gangs turned us over to you, sir. We took a Baltimore lugger, a bark from Philadelphia, two schooners from Boston, and one from Providence. We'd done right well, so far. You must ha' made a prime run, yourself."
He was evidently a privateersman all over, and his view of the matter was that he had only met with a disaster in the regular line of his business.
Morgan's thoughts were running in another direction.
"Your armament's heavier than ours," he said, after a sharp survey. "Lyme was right, poor fellow! Our only chance was to board."
"Perhaps it was," said Ellis. "We've two nines and three sixes on a side. Our pivot-gun's gearing broke, and she's no good. Thirty-two, though. TheLynxis an old Indiaman. She's a little heavy, but she's a good sailer. We cut up your spars a little?"
The sailors of theNoankwere already examining her damages. Three more of her crew had been killed and two wounded in the short, sharp fight. Six Englishmen killed and seven more hurt out of forty told how severely the odds had been against them.
During the first few moments of noise and confusion, while the other sailors were rushing hither and thither upon their very pressing duties, Up-na-tan and Coco had been kneeling by Guert.
A pike-thrust in his right thigh, a slight sword-cut on his left shoulder, a bruise upon his head, told for him that he had been in the very front of the fray.
"Both cut cure up quick," said Up-na-tan, as he bandaged the wounds. "Boy no die. Ole chief glad o' that. Take him home to ole woman."
From the Ashantee came nothing but an apparently gratified chuckle.
Their first work was to get him back upon theNoankand into a bunk in Captain Avery's cabin, by Morgan's especial direction. All the other wounded, on both sides, were well cared for. Then there was a short, sorrowful hour given to sea funerals, and all the dead were buried in the ocean.
Mate Taber, with more than half of theNoank'scompany, was put in charge of theLynx. All of the prisoners, also, were left in her.
"Homeward bound, Taber," shouted Captain Morgan, as the ships parted from their too close companionship. "Take your own course to New London. The main thing is to get in."
"Ay, ay!" called back the old Groton sailor. "We'll get there. We'd best keep within signal distance as long as we can, but the schooner's riggin' needs repairs, and ours doesn't."
"All right," said Morgan. "Keep company!"
The first few hours after a sea-fight are apt to have a great deal in them. There was not a moment of time wasted on board theNoank, for the spare spars taken from theArranwere just the right things to be sent up in place of the sticks which had been shattered by the fire of theLynx. Not until they should be in place could the swift schooner show her paces, and they had been going up even while the ocean burials were attended to.
"This is awful news to carry home to poor Mrs. Avery," groaned Guert, as he lay in his bunk. "I don't care much for my hurts, but I wish I could be on deck. I'm almost glad I'm wounded. I know how Nathan Hale would feel about it. He'd say it was little enough for a fellow to suffer for his country and for liberty. I'll never forget him."
Away off there on the ocean, therefore, in a schooner bunk, in the dark, the memory of America's hero was doing its beautiful work, as it has been doing ever since, a bright example set, as a star that will not go down.
Many hands make light work, and the spars were all right by the next sunrise. There was only one sail in sight when Captain Morgan came on deck from a visit below to all his wounded men.
"That's theLynx," he thought. "We must get within hail of her and find out how Taber's gettin' on. I don't even know what her cargo is. The way Lyme Avery carried her's a wonder!"
So Captain Taber was thinking at that very hour, as he went from gun to gun of the old Indiaman's batteries.
"All she wanted was men," he said, "and she'd ha' beaten us, easy. We must have that thirty-two pounder pivot-gun in order, first thing. I'll make a strong cruiser of her. I've a gang overhaulin' the cargo. It promises well, and there's more'n thirty thousand dollars in cash.—Oh! but ain't I sick about Lyme! Best kind o' feller! Best neighbor! Best sailor, too. He and I sailed three long v'yages together, and we never had an ill word on sea or land."
Every other man of the dead captain's crew was saying or thinking something of the sort, and it was a blue time in spite of the victory. The excitement was all over now, and even the most reckless could calculate somewhat the dangers which still remained between them and home.
Captain Ellis himself came up to the deck of the ship which he had ceased to command, for there was no reason for confining him below. He found that more than half his crew had volunteered to do ordinary ship-duty, at regular pay, rather than be shut up under hatches. The remainder, however, were stubborn Britons, and refused to handle so much as a rope under a rebel flag.
"They can't do us any harm," Captain Taber had said of the volunteers. "I'll trust 'em. Besides, every man of 'em's Irish, and there's mighty little love o' King George that side o' the Channel."
At all events, all of these sailor sons of Erin went to their messes cheerfully that morning.
"Captain Taber," said Ellis, when they came together, "I never saw anything like it! Look, yonder! Your schooner's refitted! She's as taut and trim as ever!"
"She has half a dozen good ship carpenters on board," laughed Taber. "They could build her over again. Our shipyards are goin' to bring out some new p'ints on ship-buildin'."
"I wish they would," said Ellis. "Our shipwrights are half asleep. Do you s'pose you can repair that pivot-gun? We hadn't a smith worth his salt."
"She'll swing like new, before long," said Taber. "The man that's filing away at her could invent a better gearing than that is. He could make a watch."
Right there was one important difference, then and afterward, between American sailors and European. It was a difference which was to be illustrated on land as well, in the records of the Patent Office at Washington, and in the wonderful development of all imaginable varieties of mechanism.
"There she comes, the beauty!" was Taber's next remark, as theNoankneared them. "She can outsail anything of her size that I know of."
"She must keep out o' the way of heavy cruisers, though," said Ellis, a little savagely. "I'd ha' beat her, myself, if I hadn't been caught weak as I was."
A hail from Captain Morgan prevented Taber from answering, and in a minute more the two American crews were cheering each other lustily.
"What cargo do you find?" asked Morgan through his trumpet, after he had learned that all else was well.
"All sorts!" responded Taber. "Picked up from prizes. Plenty o' water, provisions, ammunition. I can't guess where they pulled in some o' the stuff. Woollen cloths, and crockery crates, and tobacco. It looks as if they'd taken some Hamburg trader for an American. You can't say what a privateer'll do, well away at sea."
Ellis heard, and there came a queer, half-anxious grin upon his deeply lined, hardened face. He did not, in fact, look like a man who would hesitate long over any small moral questions of mere flags and ownerships. He was a privateersman in preference to any other occupation, without need for the patriotic spirit which was sending into it the seafaring veterans of America.
"All right!" was the hearty reply from theNoank. "Now, Taber, we must keep company if we can for two or three days, at least. Our two batteries, worked together, 'd be an over match for any o' the lighter king's cruisers. We could knock one o' their ten-gun brigs all to flinders."
"I a'most hope we'll come across one," said Taber, "soon as that there thirty-two yonder'll swing on its pivot."
Two armed vessels may not make what is called a "squadron." Captain Morgan, therefore, had not suddenly risen from the rank of first mate to that of commodore, but both the old East Indiaman and the schooner were undoubtedly safer because of their ability and readiness to help each other.
Captain Taber's cruiser, when he came to examine her, was a curious affair, according to later ideas of ship-building. She had been constructed solidly, and had a large carrying capacity. Her sides "tumbled home," or slanted inward, nobody knows what for. Her stern was very high, as if a kind of fort were needed, rising to hold up her quarter-deck. In this, on either side, were her nine-pounders, and it might account for their shot flying above theNoank'shull. She was lower in the waist, and she piled up again, forward. Her tops were cups like those of a man-of-war, and might hold sharp-shooters in a close fight. It is the rule to laugh, at that old style of naval architecture, but when theLynxhad been theBurrumpootrashe had battled well with the terrible gales and seas of the Indian Ocean, and there were legends of the way in which she had beaten off Chinese and Malay pirates. There were not only good ships but good seamen as well in the old-fashioned days, and all the world was discovered and opened by them to commerce and civilization.
Up-na-tan considered himself the surgeon of theNoank, and he was a good one, so far as cuts and bruises were concerned. He and Coco held consultations over Guert, and there was no danger but what he would be well attended to. He was a general favorite with the sailors, and their opinion of him had been lifted tremendously by his conduct at the taking of theLynx. They all declared that he had in him the making of a good sea-captain,—as good, it might possibly be, as Lyme Avery himself, although that was a great deal to say.
That day went by, and the next, and the next, and all in vain did either Captain Ellis or his captors scan the horizon for any speck that looked like war. There were distant sails, truly, but this pair of privateers was inclined to let well enough alone. The fourth day found them well away upon the Atlantic before a ten-knot breeze, slipping along finely, with all the wounded doing well. Guert's pike-thrust in the leg was his worst hurt. It caused him much pain at intervals, and a great deal of fever. The cutlass blow at his shoulder had been broken of its force by the handle of his pike. The wooden shaft had been cut in two as he parried with it, while drawing it back from his successful thrust at Captain Avery's antagonist. The English swordsman had been a strong one, for his blade went on down to make a gash which might be slow in healing. It would probably have been a death stroke but for the tough pikestaff.
"You'll be out on deck, my boy, in a week or two," he had been told by Captain Morgan, "and you're lucky it's no worse."
There was no use in fretting over it. He could lie there and dream of old times in New York, and of ships and fleets and armies. There was no book on board for him to read, however, unless he should wish to take up his study of navigation. There he was lying in the afternoon of the fourth day, not tossing around much, for fear of hurting his wounded leg or shoulder. He was feeling lonely, sick, impatient, discontented.
"Hullo!" he suddenly exclaimed. "What's that? Are we in a fight? I want to go on deck!—There! I guess that was pretty nearly a spent shot!"
It was too bad, altogether. Right through the port-hole window of the cabin had passed a round shot from so far away, apparently, that it hardly shattered the door-post upon which it then struck. It had been well aimed, it had hit the schooner, but it had not done any harm.
"There goes Up-na-tan's gun," said Guert, the next instant. "I don't hear the broadside guns. I guess that other firing is from theLynx. She was close by us, they said. This is awful!"
He could now hear the distant, dull roar of other guns, and he said:—
"That's the British! It sounds as if we were fighting a man-of-war. Can it be we are going to be captured by 'em this time?"
He might well be nervous about it, but his guesses and fears were only about halfway correct. Not many minutes earlier, theNoankand theLynxhad drawn toward each other, into long hailing distance, for a sort of council of war. Questions and answers had gone hurriedly back and forth, until Captain Morgan had shouted:—
"We'll take her, Taber. We can spare men enough for one more prize crew. She's a big one."
So she was, that tall three-master, floating the British flag, and she was evidently not a frigate of King George. Most likely, they said, she was a supply ship on her way to his armies in his rebellious colonies.
About went the two eager privateers, and there seemed to be no reason to doubt their ability to outsail and outfight their victim. She was carrying a cargo so full and heavy that it pulled her down, and she was logging along clumsily. Both of the American vessels were flying the stars and stripes. TheLynxwas somewhat nearer to the Englishman, and Captain Taber deemed it time to fire a shot across her bows as a signal to heave to.
The sound of that first gun was what had really awakened Guert, but he had not at once understood it. Captain Morgan was on the point of following Captain Taber's example, when the big, peaceful-seeming British ship swung around a few points, and a lot of hitherto closed ports along her side sprang open. Every one of these ports had an ugly, metallic nose in it, and from each of these jumped a sheet of fire, followed by thunder. At the same moment a band of brass music on the after deck began to play "God save the King," while a long procession of men in red uniforms streamed up from below to join a lot of others like them who were already on deck.
"Eight ports!" exclaimed Captain Morgan, staring through his glass. "She may carry more guns than that! She's a British merchant ship of the largest size, turned into a troop-ship, and armed, I'd say, with long twelves. Thunder! We haven't anything to do with her! Starboard your helm, there! I'll signal Taber to keep away."
There was no need of that at all. The first heavy broadside of the stranger had hurtled toward theLynx, and several of the half-spent shot had struck her. Her commander had taken warning instantly, and was already wheeling away, so to speak, when the second British broadside went so dangerously well toward theNoank.
"One such dose is just as good as two," remarked Captain Morgan. "I'm glad Taber has good sense. We don't want to be crippled jest now. We can't afford to risk a stick. We'll get away out o' range, quickest kind!"
So he did, and so did Taber. But they would by no means have done so if it had not been for a reason that was getting an explanation in the furiously angry exclamations of the British sailor in command of that pugnacious troop-ship. He had rapidly grown red in the face, and now he seemed ready to burst.
"Lost 'em! Missed 'em!" he roared, as he stamped up and down the deck. "I had 'em both trapped! I let 'em come near enough before I fired a gun. I'd ha' sunk 'em or sent 'em in. It's the fault o' that rascally thief at the navy-yard. He supplied us with that worthless, condemned contract powder. It won't pitch a shot worth tuppence. He ought to be hung! I'll report him!"
The mystery of so many cannon-shot being practically spent at a fair practice distance was completely explained. No doubt he was wrong in declaring that his ammunition was no better than so much sea-sand, but it was not the stuff to send twelve-pound balls of iron through oak or teak bulwarks, and his cunning trap to catch the two American privateers was a lamentable failure.
It was an hour of their best running before these were again within hail of each other. Then their two commanders held a brief speaking-trumpet conversation, congratulating each other upon having gotten out of so serious a scrape without injury.
"Morgan," said Taber, at last, "the far northerly course, if it suits you. I think we'd better shape it as if we were bound for Halifax, and keep well away from every sail we sight."
"That'll do," replied Morgan. "That there Nova Scotia garrison needs supplies, you know. We're jest the boats to bring 'em all they want. If we come up with another supply ship, though, and if she hasn't quite so many guns, we may persuade her to go as far as Boston with us."
"No, sir! I'd say not!" called back Taber. "I feel uneasy 'bout Boston jest now. I'd ruther not try any home port but New London, and we'd better make our run in there by night."
"All right!" said Captain Morgan. "Home it is! Heave ahead!"
Guert Ten Eyck, in his bunk, received from his friends a full account of that day's curious adventure. The port of his cabin was quickly mended, and he could once more lie quiet and wait for his own mending. On deck there was especial matter for general discussion arising from the fact that all had seen a troop-ship.
"More soldiers to conquer America," they said. "It looks bad for us. The king is sending over British and Hessians, army after army. They are all well armed, well clothed, well fed, and there are more to follow. What can our own used up, half-armed, half-starved, badly beaten Continentals do against such awful odds? The truth is, we may not find a safe port to run into."
"They can't have taken everything so soon as this," was the conclusion of Captain Morgan. "We'll feel our way in, when we get there. If all things have gone wrong we can sail away somewhere, or we can beach the ships and burn 'em, and take to the woods."